Gargi College Girls to Represent India at a Poetry Competition in Chicago

Three students of Gargi College, University of Delhi, namely Cheryl Mukherji, Diksha Bijlani and Shubhra Awasthy won the National Youth Poetry Slam (NYPS) recently. Further, the team will represent India at the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI) in Chicago in the month of April 2017.

The Gargi College girls are pretty excited for the event as they are the first set of college students, moreover an all-girl team, who will be representing India in the field of spoken word poetry at an international level.

The team will be given about 45 minutes to present their verses at the CUPSI event, in different combinations.

Subjects/ Topics the Gargi girls plan to include in their poetry verses in Chicago are as follows:

Impact of circumstances on Indian women and citizens

What is Feminism in India

Experiences of women in the rapidly changing society

Situations faced by women in the extremely regressive societal pressures prevalent in India

Issues that are culture specific yet universal in some way

How female friendships empower women

How there is no room for women to do what they feel like doing in the movement of women empowerment

The girls already believe that a literary revolution is taking place in India. Such poetry competitions have gained the attraction of many in Delhi University itself. Many college specific, as well as inter-college poetry societies, have been set up that keep conducting various activities and events every now and then.

‘Honey, today at work they called me a strong, independent woman, and told me I’m a disgrace for choosing to marry so young in the same breath. Their women empowerment comes with terms and conditions apply…’